A Fractured Dynasty in Crisis
By the thirty-sixth year of the Wanli Emperor’s reign (1608), the Ming court had descended into dysfunction. Ye Xianggao ascended to the position of Chief Grand Secretary, becoming the sole minister in the Grand Secretariat for seven consecutive years—an unprecedented situation historians would call the era of the “Lone Minister.”
The imperial court appeared stagnant—the Wanli Emperor still refused to hold audiences, the Grand Secretariat remained overworked, and officials continued their endless memorials of protest. Yet beneath this surface calm, tectonic political shifts were underway. New factions had emerged while old ones clung stubbornly to power, each searching for the opportunity to eliminate the other.
Their moment came with an unlikely figure—the Crown Prince.
The Curse That Shook the Forbidden City
For nine peaceful years after the “Demon Book” scandal, Crown Prince Zhu Changluo had lived undisturbed—until 1613, when a seemingly deranged incident dragged him back into the political maelstrom.
Wang Yueqian, a low-ranking Imperial Guards officer, submitted a shocking report: three individuals had created paper effigies bearing the names of the Emperor, Empress Dowager, and Crown Prince, driven forty-nine iron nails into them (an astonishing feat of persistence), then burned the figures—a clear act of black magic. More explosively, Wang implicated a eunuch connected to Consort Zheng, the Emperor’s favorite concubine and the Crown Prince’s longstanding rival.
The report sent shockwaves through the Forbidden City. The Wanli Emperor reportedly overturned tables in rage, pacing sleeplessly through the night. The Crown Prince feared escalation, while Consort Zheng wailed denials. Amid this chaos, Chief Grand Secretary Ye Xianggao remained conspicuously silent—until the Emperor discovered Ye had already submitted a memorial urging calm.
Ye’s brilliant maneuver framed the accusers and accused as known troublemakers with prior legal records, suggesting the matter resembled past “Demon Book” incidents but with identifiable parties. His solution: quiet judicial review without publicity. This seemingly counterintuitive stance—Ye being aligned with the pro-Crown Prince Donglin faction—revealed his political genius. By preventing a public spectacle that could destabilize the Crown Prince’s position, Ye outmaneuvered those hoping to exploit the situation.
The Wooden Pestle Attack
Two years later, on the afternoon of May 4, 1615, the simmering tensions erupted violently. A man named Zhang Cha, armed only with a wooden pestle, breached the security of the Crown Prince’s residence, Cining Palace.
The security lapses were astonishing: the first gate stood unmanned; at the second, only two elderly eunuchs stood guard. Zhang wounded one before being subdued by responding eunuchs—hardly an elite assassination squad. The Crown Prince, initially dismissing it as a minor incident, soon realized its gravity when judicial review began.
Initial interrogations by Censor Liu Tingyuan concluded Zhang was simply insane—his incoherent testimony and peasant background supporting this verdict. The case might have ended there, buried by bureaucratic inertia, had it not been for an observant Ministry of Justice official named Wang Zhicai.
The Unraveling Conspiracy
Wang’s breakthrough came through psychological observation. Noting Zhang’s abnormal but calculated behavior during meals, Wang isolated the prisoner and offered a simple bargain: “Tell the truth and eat; refuse and starve.”
Zhang’s confession peeled back layers of conspiracy:
– He was recruited by two eunuchs—later identified as Pang Bao and Liu Cheng, attendants to Consort Zheng
– They promised land and livelihood in exchange for “beating the little master” (Crown Prince)
– The plot involved a shadowy religious sect called the Red Seal Society, with ties to Consort Zheng’s family
As the investigation expanded, factional lines hardened. The Zhe faction, aligned with former Chief Grand Secretary Shen Yiguan, sought to minimize the scandal. The Donglin faction saw an opportunity to strike at their political enemies through Consort Zheng.
The Emperor’s Grand Performance
Facing mounting pressure, the Wanli Emperor staged a remarkable spectacle on May 28, 1615—his first court appearance in over two decades. Before assembled officials, the imperial family, and his grandson, he delivered a masterclass in political theater:
– Professed unwavering faith in his heir apparent
– Declared Zhang a lone madman
– Ordered the case closed permanently
The Crown Prince played his part perfectly, publicly affirming his father’s judgment. Shortly after, Zhang was executed by slow slicing (lingchi), while Pang Bao and Liu Cheng mysteriously died in custody—a tidy conclusion to an untidy affair.
Legacy of the Pestle Strike Case
This bizarre incident, known as the first of the “Three Great Cases” of the late Ming, reveals several critical insights:
1. Factional Politics: The case became a proxy war between the Donglin reformers and the Zhe faction, foreshadowing the partisan conflicts that would eventually paralyze Ming governance.
2. Imperial Dysfunction: The Wanli Emperor’s decades of neglect had eroded court protocols and security to dangerous levels.
3. Consort Zheng’s Limitations: Far from the cunning villain of popular histories, Consort Zheng emerges as politically inept—her alleged plot so clumsy it strains credibility.
4. The Crown Prince’s Savvy: Zhu Changluo demonstrated considerable political acumen in navigating the crisis, belying his reputation as a passive figure.
The Pestle Strike case exemplifies how late Ming politics transformed personal rivalries into national crises. What began as either a genuine assassination attempt or an elaborate frame-up became a touchstone for bureaucratic factionalism—a pattern that would repeat with even greater consequences in the coming decades as the Ming Dynasty lurched toward its dramatic collapse.